


Between the Clock and the Wall

by NoContractTermination



Series: Garbage collection bot [100 kinks] [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Body Worship, Character Development, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Feelings Realization, Foreplay, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Massage, No Plot/Plotless, Porn with Feelings, Romantic Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 23:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14175477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoContractTermination/pseuds/NoContractTermination
Summary: It's Sunday afternoon, and Taeil asks for a massage after coming back from the gym. Jaehyun sits on his thighs and contemplates his own evolution from a fully socialized asshat to an idiot who's unconditionally in love.





	Between the Clock and the Wall

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is supposed to count as #51 on the 100 kinks list, or "telling each other a kink and doing them." It kind of ran away from me, though.

Taeil goes to the gym on Sunday mornings when everyone goes, claiming that he enjoys the anonymity. He keeps such a routine around it, though— curiously, because he can’t sleep at normal times or schedule anything else regularly to save his life— that the receptionist knows him anyway but pretends not to. No matter how often he works out, though, a sheen of softness settles over every plane of him: no single muscle group quite defines itself past a slight shadow here or there when the light hits him just right. It would raise suspicion what he does at all at the gym if he weren’t so deceptively strong. He'd no doubt able to piggyback Jaehyun around the house if their height difference didn’t make it so awkward.

Taeil works out with his gym buddy Yuta who apparently goes everyday but also apparently likes Taeil the best out of all the other gym members. At least, this is what Taeil boasts with his chest all puffed out proudly like a little robin. Yuta is always showing him new stretches and has absolutely no shame in pursuing whatever he has his eye on, and at the moment, he happens to have acquired the will to sculpt a killer body. He goes to yoga a few times a week with a group of middle aged ladies who love him, and he brings poses back to Taeil to try out, and they fool around (like children, not the risqué kind) until the receptionist has to kick them off the ellipticals because there’s a line forming.

Jaehyun isn’t jealous. Not anymore, at least. Taeil should have friends, and he and Yuta would be hopelessly dysfunctional as partners.

Today, Yuta has brought a friend from work named Doyoung, who apparently lit some kind of inspirational flame in Taeil. Taeil spends much longer at the gym than he would have normally, cheering on the “pathetic” Doyoung and pushing himself unnecessarily hard to the point where, after he takes a quick shower, he’s flopped on the bed with a small _oof_ before Jaehyun can even towel his hair off for him.

Jaehyun doesn’t spend his time waiting around for Taeil to come home. He’s not _that_ whipped, though Sicheng from logistics who Jaehyun sometimes sees on the company wide Fortnite server would beg to disagree. Sicheng is more of an Overwatch player and Jaehyun is just a casual himself, but it’s a reputation thing. Of all the corporate socialization tactics out there, Battle-Royale-esque MMOs are surprisingly harmless. The employees can take out whatever frustration they have with anyone else on the battlefield, and it’s all in good fun. Since Fortnite doesn’t take much skill or training or time commitment, Jaehyun pops in for a round every now and then.

Sicheng doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it’s to spit out some deep, inevitable truth. “He has you wrapped around his finger,” Sicheng points out this time.

Jaehyun would reply something about how Taeil is not some manipulative little minx of a person if it weren’t bad form to act all defensive about these sorts of things. Plus, that would just encourage more of the heckling.

Taeil isn’t the type to intentionally whip people into foamy peaks. He’s more of a chaser in disguise; you wouldn’t think he’d do much in pursuit of someone, but he’s actually pretty overt about it. Everything Taeil does is surprisingly overt, but it’s often so nonsensical that it slips past recognition in a way that’s uniquely Taeil. Before they’d gotten together, Taeil had done his fair share of staring at Jaehyun from across the library, resting his hand on Jaehyun’s arm for a moment too long, and making a concentrated effort to ruffle Jaehyun’s hair from a height that felt completely unnatural for both of them. But someone like Sicheng (and most everyone who didn’t _know_ know them) would only notice the fact that Jaehyun sometimes bent over slightly so Taeil could reach, leaning into Taeil’s hand like a lonely puppy.

Back then, Jaehyun would’ve cared. Now, he doesn’t. Taeil had, in a few short years, effectively flipped Jaehyun’s entire world on its head. He'd brought into question everything Jaehyun knew about himself in a way that was not without moments of heartbreak and turmoil but overall a haze of warm, bubbly lovesickness that college-age Jaehyun had always thought he was too good for.

College-age Jaehyun, and even the Jaehyun for a good time before that, lived in an imaginary world between the clock and the bed. He lived between reality’s inevitable pull of time and his own image of himself that only existed in a dream. The problem was, the harder he reached for it, the farther away it drifted, pulled by the riptide of entropy. He lived in the third person, constantly inspecting his every move while somehow juggling the intricacies of imitating the stereotypical 19-year-old fuckboy in his natural habitat. It took a drastic change in environment and someone both unremarkable and incredible to shake him out of that. The “someone” happened to be the right person showing up at the right time, and Jaehyun, in all his princely, unsustainable glory, was suddenly rendered a fool by a small man who wrote small scraggly letters and would not stop ending his texts with ~^^. And Jaehyun was just so stupidly, hopelessly in love with him.

Taeil makes a noise and flaps his hand uselessly against the bed, sinking down into the comforter and seeming to become even tinier.

“ _Hyung_?” Jaehyun says softly, sitting next to Taeil’s hand so that Taeil has to crane his head up to look at him. His eyes poke out from under his fringe. They’re tired but bright. Jaehyun can never tell what Taeil is planning, or whether he’s even thinking at all, from just his eyes. Taeil’s good at that— not thinking at all. He unravels Jaehyun’s life a bit simply by existing in it. He’s _good for Jaehyun_ , according to Johnny. Johnny probably just says that because if anything, he’s more like Taeil than he is like Jaehyun, mentally at least. He enjoys Taeil’s presence almost as much as Jaehyun does, though there aren’t many people who can remain sour with a person like Taeil in their presence. From how Taeil talks about Yuta, it’s a miracle they’re friends, but Taeil is the type of person who begets miracles.

“Massage,” Taeil half mumbles and half burps. “Please.”

Taeil is very much half naked right now, soft and warm from just having showered, like a towel straight from the dryer. It’s getting harder by the second not to stare at all that smooth expanse of back. Jaehyun has been thinking about running his hands up and down it for a solid 15 minutes now. It’ll be even harder to touch and not _feel_ him, but that’s what Jaehyun gets for taking _one_ massage therapy class in college to fulfill an outstanding phys-ed requirement on Johnny’s recommendation. Except at that time, Jaehyun had still been hiding the fact that he was actually all-the-way-gay because it was cooler to be bi. Girls were really quite aesthetically pleasing (Jaehyun was gay, not blind). It was easy to imitate the required motions.

Anyway, Johnny recommended taking massage therapy because the professor was some hot chick but then Johnny ended up getting the hots for this weakass dude who sucked at the class but was definitely a looker. And now Jaehyun owes Taeil massages on demand, but the worst part is trying to stay calm while also being presented with the opportunity to take his fill of every nook and cranny of Taeil’s skin, warm to the touch and smooth as a peach.

“Sure,” Jaehyun says anyway, throwing his leg over Taeil’s thighs so he’s straddling them. Fortunately, Taeil is wearing sweatpants. Jaehyun can still feel the give of his ass and thighs, and a bead of sweat runs down Jaehyun’s forehead, tracing his brow. It’s the steam from the shower.

Taeil is soft all over. Jaehyun always starts by tracing the lines defined by how Taeil happens to be lying that day. “Tickles,” Taeil complains, squirming under Jaehyun’s legs, and Jaehyun laughs and rolls his palms down against Taeil’s shoulders, slow and deep, just how Taeil likes it. Taeil breathes out laboredly, barely holding in a noise, and Jaehyun lets a smug grin find his lips.

Taeil has all these small behaviors that are unbearably endearing on multiple planes of existence. What's more a miracle than the great Jung Jaehyun falling in love is Jaehyun loving Taeil so much that he, in all his confident, lackadaisical glory, considers himself lucky to have this small, awkward human. Taeil could be anyone's, yet he's here.

There was a time in college when he and Johnny both liked Taeil, and they got in a pretty big fight about it too. Jaehyun threw a fit when he found out Taeil was the "corner kid" in Johnny’s econ class that he’d been talking about these past few weeks, thinking that Johnny had _known_ Jaehyun liked Taeil but went for him anyway. Johnny was just a blubbering sensitive soul to Jaehyun at the time, so he _had_ to have known. It only made logical sense. (Turns out he was sensitive but also a complete dunce, so of course he hadn’t known. It was unfair of Jaehyun to fault Johnny for it, too; Taeil was much less likely to have classes with Jaehyun at the time. But they were stupid college kids, and everything seemed like the end of the world.)

So Jaehyun coped and retaliated (read: justified his coping with bitter retaliation) by relentlessly pursuing Taeil after that as a sort of uncharacteristic spiral into reckless self-destruction. It was only uncharacteristic because Jaehyun had never been pushed to do such a thing before. And he'd only gotten this far in life without being pushed to that degree because he avoided risks like the plague yet camouflaged it enough that no one noticed.

The risks he did take were calculated, much like every other behavior he endeavored to enact. Of course, falling in love was not something that could be calculated, but how could Jaehyun have known at the time that he was in love? Maybe by the stupid way he failed to think things through before jumping to conclusions about Johnny, or maybe in the brash, vulgar things he sometimes let slip when he'd had a bad, Taeil-related day. Or maybe he could've recognized the _completely_ uncharacteristic way he surged forward and planted a fast one on Taeil's lips one weekend not long after finding out Johnny liked Taeil, too. What he distinctly remembered was not knowing at all how Taeil felt about him. He almost never made such uninformed decisions. But he'd been pushed to that edge by how unrecognizably shitty it felt to lose all trust for your best friend and not even know why you were so mad about it while simultaneously being upset that said friend had a pretty good chance at shagging the one real crush you've ever had. 

The one thing he'd forgotten to account for in his life's Master Plan was that if he never let himself fall, he'd never know how to cope with falling. 

Jaehyun was painfully inexperienced at feeling like shit. He had no idea what to do to make it go away. And at the lowest of his lows was no time to be trying to come up with a way out of this for the first time. Reckless self-destruction would at least give him answers. The very way in which he viewed the world seemed to be dangling on a frayed piece of thread, and even if Taeil kicked him in the balls, at least it would serve as closure to this whole chapter and a sign to suck up his pride and move on.

Except Taeil actually reciprocated Jaehyun’s messy unplanned kiss, and every sulky, depressed situation Jaehyun had assumed would fall into place after that went straight out the window. And Taeil ended up sucking him off on the couch in the graduate dorm Taeil was subletting from some middle aged career woman who was never home, and they smoked some weed and Taeil fell asleep curled up into a cute little ball that was so soothing to look at that Jaehyun ended up falling asleep, too.

When Jaehyun stumbled back to his dorm the next morning, Johnny was waiting for him and muttered, “Where have you been?”

“None of your fucking business,” Jaehyun replied in this weird tonal mix of tired and elated.

“You haven’t answered any of your texts for four days, Jaehyun,” Johnny called as Jaehyun brushed past him.

“Maybe I didn’t want to,” said Jaehyun. “Especially not from you.“

Jaehyun hadn’t wanted to hear Johnny's reply, so he kicked the door of his room closed, but the words were too close to the heart. “So you’re just going to throw out 8 years of being friends, huh,” Johnny snapped.

Jaehyun has always been fickle; it was at once a source of pride and insecurity. He knew he was flaky, his friends knew he was flaky, and this was just another nail in the coffin. This was precisely what he’d been ruminating on the slow walk back from Taeil’s place during which reality hit him one brick at a time, and he still wasn't ready to face it.

Maybe this would just be a one and done thing— again. For the first time ever, Jaehyun, despite all pretenses, desperately _wanted_ to like Taeil, and that in itself was scary. What if he wasn’t capable of that? What if all those years of slowly, painstakingly crafting his character had led up to this: the one person he’d so uncharacteristically fallen in love— _love_!— with at first site— being yanked away from him by nothing other than his own lack of character? No one else was supposed to know that Jung Jaehyun, perfect in every way, was constructed around a gaping cavern of pride and societal pressures. Johnny knew. What if Taeil knew, too? What if Taeil saw him the same way? What did Taeil even like about him? “8 years? Just like that?” Johnny continued, raising his voice. "Can't say I'm surprised."

Jaehyun swung open the door, grabbing the frame so hard his knuckles were white. Hitting below the belt like that was unlike Johnny, but that was so often the problem with sensitive people; you never knew what they were capable of until you really pissed them off. And they knew exactly how to get to you. “You know what, at least at the end of that day I _did_ something,” Jaehyun said, his eyes glaring fire into Johnny's. “Even if I throw him away, at least I’m not some jealous d—“

“You think I’m _jealous_?” Johnny interrupted, squinting. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he turned away to scoff incredulously before saying, louder, “You think this is about Taeil?”

Jaehyun, all riled up now, sauntered out of his room with all the grandeur of a drunken white man. Even if Johnny said this wasn't about Taeil, Jaehyun was out of options. Johnny had taken a stab at everything Jaehyun questioned about himself, and Taeil was the only leverage Jaehyun had. “I fucked him,” he said lowly, his nose right in Johnny’s face. Johnny smelled like coffee and upset. The little wrinkles under his eyes blurred in the rage of Jaehyun’s hubris into blank, grey patches of fog. “I fucked his pretty, slutty little mouth.” Jaehyun had already started down the rabbit hole of shit he would regret saying later because he didn’t know what else to do. He was not accustomed to feeling like shit, nor was he practiced in pretending _not_ to feel like shit for long enough to win a completely emotion-driven argument (which was yet another layer of unfamiliar territory).

So in retrospect, Jaehyun probably deserved the bruise to the cheek, just short of a black eye by a few centimeters. Johnny would later say Jaehyun just got lucky, but both Jaehyun and Taeil would accuse Johnny of such a thing as being gracious even in the face of painful, bitter resentment. He genuinely knew how much Jaehyun loved his own face at the time. And Jaehyun doesn’t deny it. That was just the snapshot of one week in a much longer stretch of time in college where he’d been a complete ass. He didn’t have much else going for him.

Jaehyun doesn’t remember what he was saying, but it was something along the lines of, “He was really eager for it, too. He—“ when a sudden blunt force had him doubled over to the side and colliding with the wall of the hallway. His hand instinctively flew up to his cheekbone, which was numb and tingly. Jaehyun had always been a hardhead underneath all that skin over his face, so the punch was more shocking than painful; if anything, his shoulder bruised up after ramming into the wall from the force of the blow. Johnny had a strong arm, but he hit where it functioned more to shut Jaehyun up than injure him.

This was a perfect example of those rare times where Jaehyun’s instincts drew him down the wrong path and his pride was too stubborn to let go. None of this was Taeil’s fault, but it had everything to do with him. If his existence hadn’t blinded Jaehyun to everything logical and rational in life, none of this would’ve happened. Jaehyun was normal, and Taeil blindsided him from the same plane in a slightly skewed dimension. Taeil made everything that Jaehyun’s brain knew was the same feel a little different, and with that came an onslaught of experiences that were less than ideal but somehow perfect in their own way.

Being punched by Johnny was one of them. “You probably deserved it,” Taeil said later when Jaehyun went crying to him by pretending to be helpless and stupid. Taeil nursed the darkening bruise on Jaehyun’s cheek but took no shit from him. Ironically, that just made Jaehyun fall in love with him more. His fingers were a little clumsy but soft in their movements, like a cat pawing at something curious.

“For making a move on you first?” Jaehyun muttered grumpily, leaning his elbows on his knees and wincing when the cool sting of medicinal cream assaulted his face with ruthless gumption.

“He was worried about you,” Taeil said like it was something Jaehyun had never even considered.

Truthfully, the thought had tortured him the whole few days he cut off contact with Johnny. “He knows I’m not the type to do anything stupid,” Jaehyun said, and Taeil hummed his _I don’t agree but don’t know where to take this conversation_ hum, and Jaehyun sighed. Taeil didn’t need to fill in the holes for him. Jaehyun really wasn’t the type to do anything stupid, but everyone had the capacity to do stupid shit when provoked enough. Not returning home for days at a time with no contact was just the surface of Jaehyun's growing stupidity. And Johnny _was_ the type to worry himself ill until he coped with it by obsessing over other personal, existential matters of the heart until he got himself worked up to the point where, by the time Jaehyun came back, their entire friendship was seemingly in question. Jaehyun was good at compartmentalizing. Johnny wasn’t, and he wouldn’t change that for the world. Johnny’s confidence in his own sensitivity was something Jaehyun had always secretly admired about him. So of course Johnny had no problem socking Jaehyun in the face to get a point across.

That move was all in a burst of Johnny's adrenaline, though. This gusto would crash a few hours later when Jaehyun told Johnny Taeil said he deserved it, and Johnny worked himself up in another tizzy trying to get over Taeil, a predicament he’d forgotten momentarily with the whole Jaehyun issue. So then he was trying desperately but unsuccessfully to convince himself that Taeil was an ass and he was better off with someone like Jaehyun anyway, but then Johnny definitely sulked about it for a few weeks’ time.

That was probably when Jaehyun realized he’d be in for the long run. After mulling over what had happened in a daze half from the throbbing pressure in his cheek and half from the fact that his head was resting very firmly on Taeil’s lap, a fantasy he’d tried to keep himself from imagining for a long time now, Jaehyun realized that this was the most unraveled he’d been since his early years of high school, probably. All because of a miscommunication that was pretty stupid but also probably necessary. If Jaehyun hadn't learned what he had from that, it would've bitten him in the ass way worse later. 

It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. As much as Jaehyun hated to admit it at the time, he and Johnny did become closer after that. Not that Johnny was the only friend Jaehyun had since high school, but Johnny was close in ways other people weren't, whether it was because they dormed together or because Johnny was American or because he was just an oversensitive punk. Johnny kept saying Taeil was “good” for Jaehyun, and while Johnny was not someone Jaehyun wanted to be like per se, he was a good person and had an honest, if not a bit brash, judge of character.

Taeil, for lack of better phrasing, made Jaehyun stupid. He still does; he still makes Jaehyun stupid. The thing more miraculous than that is that Taeil makes it so that Jaehyun doesn't care that he's stupid.

It isn’t long until Taeil starts humming. His voice is melodic enough to sound like it’s carrying a tune when he’s really just making arbitrary noises. Jaehyun digs his thumbs under Taeil’s shoulder blades and Taeil moans all fluttery and delicious. Jaehyun suppresses a shiver.

Taeil has to be doing this on purpose today. He's always some degree of uninhibited about his noises, and Jaehyun loves it, but today he's almost purposely vocal. The thought that Taeil, who always just does whatever the hell he wants, is doing this to get a reaction out of Jaehyun is surprisingly hot. Jaehyun growls lightly and presses an insistent kiss against Taeil’s nape. Taeil’s skin heats up under Jaehyun’s breath, and when Jaehyun sucks lightly on it and bites down, Taeil says softly, “Harder.”

Jaehyun’s hands have stalled at Taeil’s waist, more squeezing at the skin than doing any sort of real massaging. Probably around 60% of their massage sessions turn into impromptu sex. The ones that don’t are only because Taeil falls asleep partway through, which makes Jaehyun sound like a horny slut, but he can’t help it when Taeil makes such pretty noises like the ones he’s making right now: satisfied but needy little hums and the occasional gasp and “right there.”

"Why are you being so sexy today, _hyung_?" Jaehyun says in a calm but low voice, a little playful because he doesn't need a real answer. 

As expected, Taeil just hums again and laughs a little from the back of his throat so that Jaehyun can feel it against his skin once he leans down and starts kissing Taeil again. His dick is hard and sticking out like an obvious bump through his sweats against Taeil's back.

“Okay,” Taeil says out of the blue, and Jaehyun looks up toward his face again, which is still half smushed into the pillow from lying on his stomach. His cheek pokes out, round and flushed. “Okay, but massage first.”

“Of course,” Jaehyun replies, grinning. Massaging Taeil doesn't bother him, it just takes more concentration than he has patience for sometimes. Today is Sunday, though, and Jaehyun's socialized self tells him to take it slow, maybe even get Taeil back a little once he's all worked up and needy. The thought is like a reward and succeeds in making Jaehyun finally concentrate on putting in the proper technique he learned in college. 

He works his thumbs around the tendons in Taeil’s neck and down his spine, squeezing his intercostals with his fingers and moving up to his arms. Memory of the muscle groups and their names and functions has fled him, but Taeil's body is so familar by now that Jaehyun could do this in his sleep. 

“‘m behind,” Taeil mumbles into the pillow when Jaehyun climbs off him to focus his weight on Taeil's left shoulder.

“Hm?” Jaehyun says, smiling fondly as Taeil wiggles his butt out from arching his back. He’s fond of Taeil’s butt. It’s a good butt.

Taeil groans, half in frustration and half because Jaehyun has definitely hit a knot right beneath his shoulder blade. “I— Ikindoflikeitfrombehind,” Taeil says in a rush of air, letting himself fall back into the pillow face down in a motion of complete finality. He won’t repeat himself again.

But it’s okay— Jaehyun has caught it. “Oh?” Jaehyun says. He can’t help the smirk in his voice, and Taeil knows it. His skin almost flushes under Jaehyun’s hands, though it’s probably just the warmth channeling that impression.

There’s a difference between insecurity and shyness. Taeil makes sure that Jaehyun knows that. Taeil isn’t insecure; quite the opposite, actually, and that confidence of his is what makes him so comfortable with being exactly who he is in his own skin: small, and hesitant but not fearfully so, wide-eyed, easily amused, and _soft_ : so disarmingly soft and not actively doing anything to change that. Jaehyun loves the way Taeil’s skin gives under his touch, and Taeil knows that Jaehyun loves it, so he gives. He gives so much without even knowing he’s giving it, just by merit of letting Jaehyun have him and touch him and wrap his whole body around Taeil and squeeze him like a pillow. 

Taeil is always soft, but there are two times when he's especially pliant: when Jaehyun massages him, and after sex. Sometimes he'll fall asleep, and sometimes he stays conscious for a while not speaking or moving, his breathing just toeing that limbo. It’s not deep enough to hear, but it's relaxed in a way that you could draw something out of him, like the end of a thread. That’s usually when Jaehyun talks to him, with his own arms wrapped around Taeil as he breathes at a comforting rhythm. 

Last weekend had been one of those nights. Taeil had virtually melted into the mattress with only Jaehyun’s arm and an uneven pile of blankets thrown over him. And Jaehyun was resting his head on the half of the pillow that puffed up when Taeil leaned the whole weight of his head on the other half.

Jaehyun's lips fit perfectly into the crook of Taeil’s neck, like that spot right between his shoulder and his spine was made for him. And Jaehyun takes it upon himself to lap at it like a dog because Taeil’s skin tastes good. It’s one of their things, but Taeil has assured him repeatedly that he doesn’t mind. Once again, Taeil gives. 

That night, Taeil responded by making a pleased little noise that made Jaehyun go all warm inside. "I can’t tell if you actually like this or if you just associate it by now with going to sleep," Jaehyun mumbled into Taeil’s skin, and Taeil let out a lazy, breathless laugh that barely moved his body. 

"No, I like it," Taeil said, and Jaehyun slotted himself closer against Taeil’s back. "Feels good." 

A rumbling noise emerged from the back of Jaehyun's throat, in maybe a show of pride or self-importance or tenure. After a few minutes, Jaehyun started getting antsy, though he tried not to show it. "What else do you like?" he prodded quietly.

There are things Taeil is, and things Taeil is not; Taeil always makes sure Jaehyun is well-informed about him, showing Jaehyun without words the natural, immutable differences between what is and what isn't. Taeil is neither insecure nor easily embarrassed, but the things that embarrass him do so without mercy. Insecurity implies shame, while embarrassment is a natural, evolutionary response that developed when humans were tasked with this strange phenomenon called _trust_ , according to Taeil. Whatever that subtle phenomenon is must be what gives Taeil that pretty flush that runs down his chest when he undresses while Jaehyun watches him, when on the other hand, he has no issue primping up with Jaehyun isn’t around and waiting for him in nothing but skimpy, decorative lingerie, lying on his stomach and playing games on the iPad when Jaehyun walks in to an eyeful of skin that goes straight to his dick. 

Taeil is calm when he’s like that. He’s sure in his movements and relaxed when Jaehyun fucks him, even when Jaehyun goes hard and fast after a long day at work. Taeil doesn’t come like this, but he assures Jaehyun that it’s fine and seems sated anyway. He has never expressed any form of discontentment over it.

But Jaehyun is nothing if he isn’t persistent. And there are some days when he pushes Taeil’s buttons just right and makes Taeil scream and come over the sheets or his lower belly, his body drawing into a taut, tensed bow. He looks beautiful like that, but they don’t talk about it afterwards. Taeil is stubborn about this, this… _tradition_ of Jaehyun not knowing what the hell makes Taeil lose himself. This is one of many things Jaehyun can’t pry out of Taeil.

"It’s embarrassing," Taeil was mumbling against the pillow that night in response to Jaehyun's question, though nothing they do is really that out of the bounds of 'normal' during sex. "No, not the— it’s embarrassing to talk about, you know."

Maybe it's because Taeil has always been more or less a loner. Jaehyun used to talk about this kind of stuff with Johnny all the time back in college; hell, they probably would’ve watched porn together if Johnny weren’t so fussy about it, insisting that fake kind of stuff didn’t really get him off. Admittedly, ever since Taeil, porn doesn’t really have the same kind of appeal it did back then to Jaehyun, either. 

Talking about sex doesn't become part of your natural vocabulary until you make it so. It's like swearing. Maybe saying something in the heat of the moment like Jaehyun usually does, you know, with the whole, "God, you look so hot like this," or the, "You feel so good," is too much to expect from Taeil; maybe asking him about it upfront would be easier. Unfortunately, that means more words in total. It also means that your brain has to be fully engaged in the sharing-of-kinks activity.

"Please, tell me," Jaehyun whined into Taeil’s shoulder. Jaehyun only uses that tone of voice when he really wants something. It wasn't really fair play, tapping into Taeil’s instinctual duty to be a Good _Hyung_ like that, but compromises had to be made. 

"Oh, Jaehyun," said Taeil, sighing in a way that might as well have outright said _you know I can’t resist that voice_. Jaehyun smiled smugly when Taeil twisted toward him and buried his nose into Jaehyun’s neck. Jaehyun tucked Taeil under his chin accordingly. 

When Taeil didn't speak for a while, Jaehyun said, "I want to make you feel good, _hyung_."

Taeil grunted something unintelligible. Jaehyun only noticed from the way Taeil’s back twitched when he put in the effort to make a sound. "You’re dead set on this, aren’t you?" Taeil said, and Jaehyun nodded so Taeil could feel it against the top of his head. 

"It makes me feel good when you feel good," said Jaehyun simply. He can't deny that a part of it is to feed his own ego. "It means the sex is good."

Taeil snorted. "So you want to be good at sex."

Jaehyun smiled and hoped Taeil could hear it. "I was thinking that maybe if there were something in it for me, you’d be more inclined to humor me." After all, Taeil liked to give. 

Taeil sighed and pushed at Jaehyun’s bare chest lightly but did nothing to extract himself from it. "You thought right," he'd said but ended it there for that night with a silent promise to think about it. 

They'd still had sex throughout the week, but mostly handjobs. They're quicker and less messy and just all around easier, especially when both of them are tired from work. It would be a lie to say Jaehyun hasn't been thinking about the conversation from time to time; he'd brought something like this up a few times before, but he really thought he'd been on the edge of something this time. Fast forward to today: Taeil brings it back because it has the potential to be sexy, except he gets nervous and it all rushes out at once in a way that's disarmingly cute.

The content of the confession itself comes as a bit of a surprise. Jaehyun likes looking at Taeil’s face when they have sex, just because Taeil is so beautiful. Jaehyun is greedy like that. He drinks in every expression Taeil makes, from the quirk of his eyebrow to the way his chin pulls when he purses his lips to the dimples under his eyes when he squeezes them shut in pleasure. It’s alluring and beautiful and artful and entirely Jaehyun’s and a shameless turn-on, and he’d always just assumed Taeil had no preference when it came to that, because he's never complained.

“And why is that?” Jaehyun says calmly, trying not to press too aggressively and also being mindful of the slight twitch in his crotch. Taeil talking about sex in any capacity is sexy. Maybe Sicheng is right. (He's whipped.)

Taeil is quiet for a moment and feels tense under Jaehyun’s hands, but not uncomfortably so. He's thought, teetering between possibilities. Finally, he sighs and murmurs, “Sometimes when you bend my legs back I get a cramp in my thigh afterwards.”

Jaehyun’s first instinct is to apologize, but Taeil doesn’t like it when Jaehyun babies him outside of, well, sex. So Jaehyun goes with his second gut feeling, which is to laugh. Taeil grins too, because he’s in good spirits. “Really?” Jaehyun says, and Taeil nods.

“Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a leg cramp and I feel like I’m dying,” Taeil complains, and Jaehyun hums sympathetically.

“Wait, is that why you make those noises, when—“ Jaehyun starts, and Taeil laughs.

“Oh, you heard?” he says, and kicks Jaehyun’s elbow lightly. “Then why didn’t you ever do anything about it?”

“I always thought you were just having nightmares!” Jaehyun says defensively, and Taeil snorts. “I don’t know how to deal with that kind of stuff.”

“You’re like the most useless person,” Taeil says, knowing very well that Jaehyun is the opposite of useless, which is exactly why he says it. It isn’t and will never be a sore spot for Jaehyun: if anything, he’s too competent thereby enabling Taeil’s growing lazy streak. Taeil has been meaning to learn to cook for months now, but it’s just easier for them both if Jaehyun handles it.

“You love me,” Jaehyun murmurs with a smile, and Taeil huffs.

“I do,” he says quietly, and Jaehyun’s heart melts a little, even if Taeil only really means half of what he says. It’s not that Taeil doesn’t mean it fully but more that he’s not really aware of what comes out of his mouth sometimes and would need a moment to affirm it if asked about it later, especially in his pliant, delirious state. Jaehyun thumbs the tendons near his spine and lower back, hard, and Taeil bites his lip and chews off a moan, managing to say, “Especially when you do _that_."

Taeil feels particularly stiff but melts little by little under Jaehyun’s hands, whether it’s the warmth or the pressure points or how Jaehyun is basically forcing it out of him with how hard he digs. But Taeil likes it that way, especially when his muscles are this tight. “Didn’t stretch properly?” Jaehyun half asks half chides, and Taeil grumbles under his breath. He hates stretching, especially his obliques. He thinks he’s sufficiently flexible (he is) and deems the process unnecessary torture rather than a precaution to avoid injury.

“I’d rather be massaged,” Taeil says airily, and Jaehyun tsks.

“I guess I’m enabling this,” he replies, and Taeil laughs.

“It’s relaxing. I’m all relaxed now,” he says, stretching his arms up and out like a cat and sitting up lazily until he somehow ends up in Jaehyun’s lap with Jaehyun half holding his clownish little body. Sometimes Taeil can be too nimble for anyone’s good. It all happens so quickly that Jaehyun isn’t prepared for Taeil’s next comment. Though to be fair, he probably couldn’t have prepared himself if he tried, because Taeil leans in to peck his cheek quickly before whispering, “Can you be a little rough today?”

Jaehyun coughs out a choked noise and muffles it in Taeil’s neck and tightens his grip on Taeil’s hips. Moon Taeil is too much sometimes. The only predictable thing about him is that he’s entirely unpredictable.

“Can you do that for me?” Taeil breathes, pulling back to look at Jaehyun, and Jaehyun’s dick hardens almost comically fast when Taeil grinds down against it. He’s being torturous in his movements. He’s slow and lazy and sloppy with it, gripping Jaehyun’s hair for support.

“God,” Jaehyun grunts and latches onto Taeil’s lower lip, sucking at it until it’s pouty and swollen and Taeil lets him, humming appreciatively. “You like it rough?”

Taeil sighs against the corner of Jaehyun’s mouth while Jaehyun tries to get back at him a bit. “You already know that,” Taeil says, whining a little petulantly, and Jaehyun grins.

“It’s hot when you say it, _hyung_ ,” Jaehyun replies.

Taeil grabs handfuls of Jaehyun’s shirt, clearly frustrated in that meaningless kind of way, and jerks him forward into a real kiss. And Jaehyun gladly obliges until they’re just mouthing and tonguing at each other sloppily, breaths getting harsher and dicks straining against their sweats. “Fine, _yes_ I like it when you fuck me hard with your fat cock,” Taeil drawls against Jaehyun’s mouth.

It’s times like these Jaehyun wishes he had some semblance of motor control. Instead, he can feel himself regressing back to a teenage state where he’s so turned on literally anything Taeil says could make him hard, and it doesn’t help that Taeil has the sultriest voice on this side of paradise.

Taeil will never let him live this one down. He’s already giggling, but the more Jaehyun tries to will his boner away and convince himself that no, Taeil wanting his “fat cock” is _not_ hot, the worse it gets. It’s embarrassing, but Jaehyun’s hierarchy of needs dictates that theres a problem more pressing— literally pressing against Taeil’s thigh— than that. “You deserved that,” Taeil sings, peppering kisses across Jaehyun’s cheeks, but as far as Jaehyun’s concerned, a little embarrassment for Taeil acting like a whole porn star, which has been one of Jaehyun’s deepest closeted fantasies since college, is not a steep asking. Unless Taeil blabs about it to Yuta, or Johnny. Then it’ll be hell, but Jaehyun’s nothing if Taeil hasn’t changed the way Jaehyun perceives what used to make his world come crumbling apart at the seams now just a petty afterthought dancing at the peripheral of their strange little world together.

Things become so much more trivial when you’re in love. Johnny was right when he said Taeil was good for him, not that Jaehyun ever doubted that.

They wrestle and giggle until Jaehyun pokes at Taeil's sides so much that Taeil is doubling over and squirming away from him himself, curling onto his elbows and knees on the mattress. All of a sudden Jaehyun is hovering over him, almost completely enveloping him, and he waits for Taeil to catch his breath, stalling by appreciating the little bumps of Taeil's spine along the back of his neck.

Taeil makes a surprised but pleased noise while Jaehyun starts kissing down Taeil’s shoulders and spine, places he’d just kneaded with his hands but it all doesn’t seem like enough; Jaehyun will probably never get his proper fill of the soft, billowing planes of Taeil’s body, and kissing him only serves to sate Jaehyun for the immediate future.

Jaehyun finally stops for a moment to tug off his tee, and he can almost hear the thrumming of Taeil's body as he hastily presses against him again, his dick unabashedly snug against the cleft of Taeil’s ass. The two of them just hover there for a moment with Jaehyun breathing hard into Taeil’s ear and reveling in the soft, needy noises Taeil makes and the way he starts to rock back against Jaehyun slowly.

“You like that?” Jaehyun murmurs, and Taeil just keens at that, nearly vibrating. It clicks then: the fun isn't in telling Jaehyun what he likes; rather, it's letting Jaehyun unravel him. Whether it’s the kink itself or the promise of better sex yet to come, Taeil loves it every time Jaehyun asks him or somehow discovers a new kink of his. It is not a game but an ongoing discourse; Taeil, in all the honesty in his bright, brilliant eyes, wants Jaehyun to meet him where he's at. They move through this together. There is a puzzle not for Jaehyun but for both of them, and Taeil won't do it alone.

“ _Yes_ ,” breathes Taeil, humoring Jaehyun today. He’s needy. Maybe it’s the endorphins from exercise, or the massages have been a turn on all this time. Enough teasing him for now, probably. 

Jaehyun hums into Taeil’s skin and slides his fingers under the waistband of Taeil’s sweats, pressing the pads of his fingers into Taeil’s thighs, and Taeil shudders, tensing with want. When he finally slides Taeil’s sweats down to his knees, Taeil moves to kick them off almost instantly, a huge contrast to the slow pace Jaehyun had set. Taeil doesn’t do it out of spite, nor does he complain, though a part of him seems like he wants to.

There’s something enchanting about slow sex on a Sunday afternoon, though, even if Jaehyun does get to be a little rough with it. Taeil knows that, too, logically, but he also looks like he wants to come. Badly.

They compromise. Jaehyun starts leaving rough, intense bite marks down Taeil’s back, and Taeil shivers, keeping his hands clenched in the sheets and his ass snug against Jaehyun’s clothed dick, hips aching to thrust against the mattress but the promise of delayed gratification somehow still a beacon in his hazy mind.

He shoves backward instead on shaking arms, ignoring his instincts for another plan of action: getting Jaehyun so worked up that his patience wears away. It’s working.

Jaehyun growls; he could probably come just from rutting against Taeil, but that's not what today is for. Today is for fucking Taeil slow and sure and hard. So Jaehyun reluctantly rips himself away to grab the bottle of lube on the floor by their desk, which isn’t the last place they fucked despite being an inviting temptation. Things just end up scattered about with the way the two of them operate together: not anywhere near neat but clean enough to pass as presentable with a lived-in charm. Until you spot the lube on the floor and the bowl on the desk and the pair of lacy panties hanging on the rung of the laundry hamper. The sight is so familiar that it flattens into a day to day vista. Jaehyun high key fears letting his parents visit in case he and Taeil allow things to fade too far into the backdrop that they forget to pull them back.

Although Taeil’s breaths even out, his knees are shaking under him by the time Jaehyun returns. Taeil spreads his thighs slowly, sinking into the mattress and letting his cock droop toward the inviting sheets. Jaehyun puts a firm hand on Taeil’s hip because he can, and Taeil whimpers, loudly.

“You really want it today, huh,” Jaehyun marvels in a low voice, taking his time in spreading out Taeil’s ass cheeks with his thumbs and letting the side of his dick rub up against it, tempting but ultimately unsatisfying.

“God, yes,” Taeil breathes, and Jaehyun groans, grinding sloppily against Taeil a few more times. “Hurry, _please_.”

There are a lot of times Taeil doesn’t catch on to exactly what Jaehyun wants, but the times he does more than make up for it. Taeil certainly catches onto the fact that this is just as hard for Jaehyun as it is for him. Jaehyun coats his fingers with lube, and Taeil whines, nearly collapsing when Jaehyun finally touches him, teasing at his entrance with the tip of his index finger.

“Deeper,” Taeil demands immediately, and Jaehyun humors him but takes his time with it, feeling around inside while Taeil presses back against him. Jaehyun steadies him with his other hand and Taeil growls in frustration but complies— though not without a clench of petulance around Jaehyun’s finger. Taeil was already tight, but the warmth that sucks him in is tantalizing. The thought of that around Jaehyun’s cock makes it twitch in anticipation, wetness spurting out of the tip like he’s a horny college kid again and Taeil is the crush he sees every day in the dining hall which is enough to make his imagination run rampant but not enough for any real satisfaction.

It’s stupid, but their sex has always pretty much been incredible. For all he claims he is, Jaehyun is pretty good at sex. If anything, he can read cues like it's second nature. Taeil likes it deep, and Jaehyun is well-endowed. The prep work makes Taeil crazy, and in this position Jaehyun gets a clear, impossibly lewd view of how impatient Taeil really is, lube dripping down the backs of his thighs like an obscene mess. Taeil has let himself collapse onto the pillows entirely and moans when his back arches into a good stretch. Jaehyun drives his finger in deep then, watching him, and Taeil gasps, scrabbling for something to grip onto.

Taeil is definitely reacting more today, notwithstanding the fact that he'd asked for this. Jaehyun rewards him by pressing light kisses across his lower back while opening him up with a second finger. Watching Taeil like this is enough to make Jaehyun hungry for more, but in the grand scheme of things, the puzzle that is Moon Taeil is best enjoyed slowly. For now, this is enough.

Jaehyun has to pull back for a moment to push the second finger all the way in and Taeil nearly chases him, struggling not to push back against him. “You look so sexy like this,” Jaehyun murmurs, stroking back and forth across Taeil’s entrance teasingly before stretching him shallow.

Taeil trembles and lets out a quiet squeak when Jaehyun starts thrusting slowly. Taeil has no problem communicating with his body, as clichéd as it sounds, and it’s easy to fall into the habit of watching him. He’s honest, but there are still subtleties to what he’s trying to express, as if he’s stubbornly caught at an impasse between his pride and his sanity, and his one goal in this moment is staying rooted right there as long as humanly possible. Right now, even, there’s a silent rhetoric between them, no doubt lingering somewhere in the nooks between Taeil’s waking thoughts and the surges of blurry pleasure buzzing through him. Jaehyun watches Taeil out of habit but this afternoon, and Taeil is excitable— loud, even.

“Mmph,” Taeil grunts into the pillow now stuffed between his hands. His toes curl and his ass clenches, and Jaehyun grits his teeth at the temptation to shove his fingers deep into Taeil, just how he likes it. He remains grounded, though, if only to see more of Taeil wiggling his ass, his thigh muscles tightening and relaxing intermittently. “Deeper,” Taeil demands suddenly, and Jaehyun makes a satisfied noise. He complies, stroking Taeil’s walls soothingly as a reward, but Taeil isn’t having any of it. “Harder, _please_ ,” he adds in a strained voice.

“You like that, huh,” Jaehyun growls, and Taeil shudders but stubbornly roots himself, squaring his shoulders when Jaehyun leans over him to kiss them and leave little bites. “ _Hyung_?” Jaehyun says while pushing all the way to the knuckle with each thrust, picking up his pace rapidly.

“ _Ahh_ —! God, yes, Jaehyun,” Taeil cries out a little brokenly as Jaehyun reaches around with his free hand to tease the base of Taeil’s cock. “Hurry up and fuck me properly, you bastard,” Taeil mumbles into the pillow, his ears flushing from the exertion and a little embarrassment, and Jaehyun hums in approval and leaves gentle little kisses down the notches in Taeil’s spine but continues to fuck him hard and fast with his fingers, stretching him with a third slipped in and barely giving him time to adjust. Taeil gasps in response and squeezes his knees into the mattress and arches his upper back and melts down into the sheets while trying to take Jaehyun in deeper than his fingers will go. When Jaehyun grabs Taeil’s dick and starts to stroke lazily, Taeil jerks and tries to slap his hand away. “Don’t, I—I’ll come,” he stutters out, and Jaehyun laughs quietly and thumbs across the head, feeling precome spurt out against his fingers. Taeil whines a little frustrated, grabbing Jaehyun’s wrist and tensing for a moment as if trying to decide whether to use the leverage to hold him there or pull him away properly. He settles on the latter and Jaehyun concedes, groaning and rutting against the backs of Taeil’s thighs when Taeil mumbles, “W-want your cock,” into his arm.

_Fuck_ , that's hot. Jaehyun squeezes his eyes shut and drops his chin to his chest, panting as he slicks himself up with lube. “You’re unbelievable,” he manages to say, and Taeil laughs. They’ve been together long enough that it’s not that embarrassing anymore; Taeil makes him crazy. Taeil has made him lose it enough that finding something fucking stupid like _want your cock_ hot is hardly of concern. “I love you,” Jaehyun tries when he ducks down and gives Taeil a quick kiss, and Taeil huffs, seemingly unaffected.

“Fuck me,” Taeil demands in reply, and Jaehyun grins. It was worth a shot. And somehow it makes an entirely irrational part of him feel better. He is so in love with Taeil. “It’s cold,” Taeil adds, reaching his hand back and waving it, and Jaehyun, struck with the sudden urge to pamper Taeil a little, grabs it and strokes slowly over Taeil’s palm as he guides his dick inside. Taeil’s toes curl and he keens, moaning softly, and Jaehyun lets go of his hand and leans over him, bracing himself against the bed and covering Taeil completely as his hips stutter, wanting to push deeper into that inviting heat. Taeil pushes back against Jaehyun, and Jaehyun holds him against his chest impossibly tight, both of them shaking with the intensity of it.

Taeil likes being fucked through the adjustment gently; the motions help him relax. With the way his walls rub against Jaehyun’s dick, though, Jaehyun won’t last a minute. He thrusts shallow and arduously slow anyway, and Taeil strokes himself weakly, making little whimpers when Jaehyun brushes past his prostate but doesn’t quite hit it, like it’s good but not enough.

“Faster,” Taeil whispers. He _is_ pliant today, his muscles relaxing all around Jaehyun and squeezing him with a velvety, excruciating softness that makes Jaehyun want to take more and more. He pulls halfway out slowly, much to Taeil’s chagrin, and then fucks back in hard, drawing an embarrassing squeal out of Taeil, who lets Jaehyun fuck him into the mattress so his cock drags against it as Jaehyun sets a slow but hard pace. Taeil is hot and thrumming around him, and Jaehyun wants nothing more than to fuck the come out of him and stroke him until he’s crying from overstimulation and then press soft kisses all over his back and shoulders. “Please, Jaehyun,” Taeil whimpers, and that gets him. “Please, harder, please, more, _more_ —“

Jaehyun cuts him off with hard thrusts right against his prostate, and Taeil lets out a choked off yell, clenching and fucking jerkily back against Jaehyun. Taeil isn’t usually this vocal, not with real words at least, and hearing it arms Jaehyun with renewed vigor, knowing Taeil trusts him to hold him off, tease him, make him feel better than he could himself.

Taeil is clawing at the sheets now with one hand, the other suspended somewhere underneath him as if he’s trying to get himself off but is too far gone to do it properly. And Jaehyun wants to come, too, desperately, and he's lucky today that Taeil is so needy and hazy and passive and that Jaehyun doesn’t have to last through other times when Taeil clenches around him or sucks on his tongue or tweaks his nipples or strokes his abs and all the things Taeil does that he knows Jaehyun likes. Taeil just takes it today, letting Jaehyun do all the work.

The problem is, with how rough Taeil likes it, Jaehyun still won’t last long. Burying himself to the hilt and feeling Taeil squeeze around the entire length of his dick is mind-numbing, and the desperate, pleased noises Taeil makes sound obscene and go straight to Jaehyun’s head and groin. He grabs at Taeil’s cock, and Taeil muffles a gasp into the pillow when Jaehyun thrusts forward with enough force to basically fuck Taeil’s cock into Jaehyun’s hand.

“More,” Taeil says brokenly, a whimpering mess as Jaehyun jerks him off. “I’m close— don’t stop, Jaehyun, please—“

Jaehyun muffles a groan into Taeil’s shoulder as more precome spurts out of Taeil’s cock. He gets so wet and messy during sex it’s a Big Problem, especially for someone who’s otherwise so unobtrusive. “You feel so good, baby,” Jaehyun murmurs, and Taeil moans loud in response.

“Make me come,” Taeil whines blearily into the pillow, hardly comprehensible, and Jaehyun groans and sees white after a few more thrusts, coming to the feeling of Taeil quivering in his arms and clenching sporadically around him. Some part of him hears Taeil suck in a gasp and a few quick breaths to Jaehyun quite literally fucking the come into him. Taeil grasps his own dick around Jaehyun’s loosening grip and whines high as he teases himself just so, hard and rough with Jaehyun panting heavily into his skin and laying kisses on his shoulders, and he finally comes with a choked off moan, rocking his hips back against Jaehyun.

The arch of Taeil’s back is like a dream as Jaehyun comes down from one of the hardest orgasms he’s had in a while. Jaehyun sees Taeil's back like that first, hazily through the intensity, then feels Taeil’s come warm around his fingers as Taeil draws it out of himself, effectively milking himself until he can’t anymore, and _god_ that’s hot as fuck.

When Taeil starts whining and trembling, his thighs coming together, Jaehyun miraculously shakes himself out of the trance of watching Taeil drag his orgasm out as long as possible and hums soothing noises into Taeil’s back and runs firm hands up and down his sides. “Shhh, you’re okay,” Jaehyun murmurs, and Taeil forces out a tired, sated, noise before melting against Jaehyun’s hands. “I’ve got you,” says Jaehyun quietly, moving to pull out until Taeil slaps a hand over Jaehyun’s hip ungracefully, so fast and hard it almost hurts.

“Don’t you dare,” Taeil grumbles, his voice hoarse. Jaehyun raises his eyebrows and snorts a little, to which Taeil responds by faceplanting into the pillow with his ass still pushed back up against Jaehyun’s hands and lap. “Just— stay,” Taeil continues, “a little longer,” and Jaehyun can’t help but comply, even though his abs and thighs burn and he’s left thumbing the head of Taeil’s cock absently.

This isn’t the first time they’ve fucked without a condom, but it never seems to get any less intense. Especially since Jaehyun has hazy memories of having sex with girls in college that were attractive, yeah, but nothing beats Taeil liking Jaehyun’s come inside him as much as Jaehyun does.

“Okay,” Taeil says after panting softly for a while.

“Okay?” Jaehyun repeats, rubbing circles into Taeil’s hip soothingly.

“Yeah,” replies Taeil, and Jaehyun finally moves, pulling away as little as possible until he can comfortably lie down on his side without crushing Taeil.

Taeil is still half propped up and Jaehyun has a mind to think he might be stuck like that until he finally eases down slowly, wincing from the stiffness across his back. The little noise Taeil makes signals that he wants Jaehyun closer, and Jaehyun grins something that must look stupid as fuck and scoots closer. He’s whipped. Taeil never asks anything of Jaehyun that he wouldn’t do. He mulls over if it’s even possible for a moment before slinging an arm around Taeil’s back. “Good?” Jaehyun says uselessly, and Taeil huffs a tired laugh into the pillow.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it was good.”

“Tell me what you like more often, yeah?” says Jaehyun, dipping his thumb into the valley of Taeil’s spine when he leans up. Taeil’s back muscles are firm, but the skin over them is soft.

“Mmm,” Taeil hums in thought. Taeil knows that Jaehyun likes making him feel good, and why, too— just not the magnitude of it, probably. Jaehyun has his pride. Taeil doesn’t mind that. He probably doesn’t know how in love with him Jaehyun is. Whatever changes would result from Taeil knowing that are negligible, anyway. Taeil gives and gives and never feels like he has anything less to give. “I like... _you_ ,” he says finally, turning toward Jaehyun with a soft smile.

Jaehyun isn’t prepared to be hit with the full force of Taeil’s gaze right then; he’d expected some sort of non-answer like that, but the way Taeil looks at him is so profound, so contented and full of love, that it almost knocks the wind out of Jaehyun.

Sometimes Taeil’s mind is just... blank, but over time it’s come to appear more to Jaehyun as uncomplicated and without ulterior motives. It’s honest and familiar, like home. It accepts anything without preconceptions and wraps Jaehyun’s thoughts and conversations up in something soft and warm which is at once forgiving and secure. Yeah, maybe Jaehyun’s more in love than he ever thought was possible.

It’s weird to think he’d love someone unconditionally; the 18 year old Jaehyun would probably call this version of him vulnerable and pathetic. But trying to resist falling more and more in love with Taeil every day was more futile than it sounded, and at some point Jaehyun had acquired the clarity to accept this. When had he changed from a product of his own determination at will of the social factors swirling around him to someone who took the past of least resistance? At the end of the day, he can't say he's unhappy with who he's become. And Taeil is at once a symbol and a human being and a reminder of the person Jaehyun wants to become— he wants to be good for _them_ , and good for them only. Imagine being satisfied with that.

**Author's Note:**

> I pretty much wrote this entirely on my phone while commuting, so that's cool. This was (once again) a PWP that got a little out of hand. It's also completely self-indulgent- I'm not even going to try to deny that. I'm so sorry I haven't been posting as often! I've been quite busy, so I've had to fit my writing into spare bits of time here and there. And nothing ever gets finished. Thank you so much for reading my work and leaving kudos and lovely comments. Sometimes I can be slow to reply, but I read and appreciate every single one of them immensely.


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